brb thankyou for the numbers. I will agree that 83 is not unrealistic ( on paper ) I also agree that the points may be amassed in a different way - but where you have been optomistic, you have been pessimistic in almost equal proportion. eg Rochdale (away) - despite the outcome at Priestfield, Dale's form has dipped much more than ourselves, so a point is not unrealistic.
This is one of the best quotes I've heard to describe Gillingham FC. It's the same every season. I've always called it doing things the hard way, flirting with relegation and then pushing for playoff and coming just short, needing a point to avoid getting relegated and turning in the worst performance if the season. Sitting pretty at the top of the table well clear for most of the season .....
The best proxy is to assume all away games will be won and all home games will be lost. I think that means 88 points although a few draws will trim half a dozen points so 82 may be more realistic.
That could be possible really because give or take that we will win a few at home (hopefully) I think 84 points is what we will get, but if we improve then we can even hit 87.
brb I hope the extra points from today's game make your prediction a little easier. I would have been happy with 0-0 but did say to BSG, who sat next to me, timupnorth& Beth that if we scored first I was confident that we were playing solid enough to not concede. Now lets hope we can an extra point OR 3 on Tuesday - then we can afford to lose more home games ! ( I can't believe I've agreed to go ! )
Those were a good three points in light of my earlier comment regarding certain over ambitions in some of my pre-season forecasts. I still stand by my season long prediction of 83 points and a win against York on Tuesday would bring a new perspective into the whole scenario for completely different reasons. Something that is difficult to measure with forecasts is who will beat whom in this league. So what I do is take the teams in the current top nine places (yes, I have a table) and pick out what we might term six pointers, the games involving the teams in that top section where a loss of points is inevitable even if shared. See examples further on. IF Gills beat York, that would give us a 12 point lead from the nearest playoff place, although not technically correct in all mathematical permutations. Which will then theoretically put us in the business area of maybe only having to focus on the next 11 games out of the 15 remaining for auto promotion. So let us look at SOME of those six pointers: Burton (3) v Exeter (4) Port Vale (1) v Exeter Exeter v Northampton (6) I'm sure you can see the pattern forming above. But let us continue: Port Vale v Southend (7) Burton v Cheltenham (5) Exeter (4) v Gillingham (2) If you think Exeter have it bad, Cheltenham have it no better, to name just one of their fixtures versus Port Vale! Now yes, we could move to the end of the season when we face Cheltenham & Burton BUT by this time I expect us to have the job done, with the aid of those six pointers, although this may impact on us having any chance of going up as champions. Due to the toughness of some of the other team fixtures my eyes then turn to Northampton, who appear in the top section to have the easier run in, although they do have to play Port Vale away on the 20th April, which we might be focusing on at a later date, if we are to pick up the title.
brb well done ! I admire your dedication to the team's progress - I bet you'd have liked for the numbers to have been made easier for you if only we could have won a few of the home 'bankers' that we've messed up - must be causing havoc with your charts. Right now I'd be happy with ( just ) automatic promotion. I've been looking at potential fixtures for next season if we are still in L2. There appears to be more travelling involved than currently exists. There is a serious risk of 2 'short' trips to AFC Wimbledon, Barnet or Aldershot to disappear, being replaced by journies to Hartlepool, Oldham & Bury - with the possibility of Wrexham & Newport joining from the Blue Sq. Prem. If we can get promoted there are quite a few teams that are relatively close to Gillingham.
An interesting statement by Peter Lloyd on the coach on the way home from York -( before I fell asleep - although it was a close run thing in the first half !) if we get 'only 'one point from the remaining games we'll be in the mid 70s ( 74 ). He said that it would take a fairly disasterous run in to mess up promotion - especially as the teams at the top have to play each other - so points will be dropped by our rivals ( as stated by brb earlier in the thread ) Surely we can get at least one point ( from each of those games ) and a sprinkling of 6 or 7 wins from the remaining 15 ( giving a total of close to 86 or better )
I just cranked through the "brb" formula which projects forward the rolling average for the last 6 games. The forecast is; Port Vale 95 Gills 79 Exeter 77 Burton 76 Fleetwood 75 Rotherham 73 For what it is worth this suggests that things are incredibly close behind Port Vale.
From a statistical point of view 6 previous outings isn't a significant data set, as shown by the sudden change in our predicted points following the last two games. That said I can't image a better way to do it
The formula is really trying to capture current form rather than be statistically significant. The weakest aspect is that it takes no account of how representative are the last six games and assumes the next 15 or so are equally challenging for all teams. The slight surprise for me was that despite a good trip to Yorkshire, Gills still have the lowest points tally of all these teams over the last six games.
For the people that have been following my pre season forecast, I have updated my charts and we are currently 3 points ahead of my targeted schedule. I had us at 59 points at this stage and actual is 62 points. Just a reminder my prediction was 83 points. I have us down as a defeat in our next game away to Chesterfield. To achieve my target of 83 points will require an average of about 1.5 pg - However, I have done a re calculation of the numbers and we are now on course to achieve a maximum 89 points against 'entire' season form. Six more points than I predicted but remember my forecasts are based on that we are Gills Although now it appears any where between 83 - 89 points may well secure us automatic promotion, unless several teams go on a completely unbeaten run until the end of season. Thus between 6-7 more wins out of our remaining 14 games should secure it. Using Exeter as an example, even if they won every single remaining game they would achieve a maximum of 94 points. I'll let you do the rest of the sums on that one.
I have just found the old BBC prediction tool and run through the rest of the season, now I know that this a very unscientific method and I probably forecast too many draws but my predictions see us finish on 85 pts in 2nd place on goal difference! With Burton coming home third on 80, but perhaps of more interest in my forecast is that 76 pts would achieve automatic promotion. So I have us to get 23 pts from our last 14 matches 6 wins, (Oxford, Aldershot, Exeter, Torquay, Accrington and Wimbledon), 5 Draws (Chesterfield, Plymouth, Rochdale, Morecambe and Cheltenham) and 3 Defeats (Fleetwood, Rotherham and Burton)
Ashfield how could 76 points get auto prom if Burton get 80 points in third. only 3 teams go up before play offs. Gills still getting results without playiny well, a good sign. 1 go with 83 points.
I am thinking we will maybe achieve 85 points this season which will send us up but if we keep up good form I see us getting enough to win the league.
As BRB has pointed out ref Maximum points available a quick look shows the following. Gills 104, Port Vale 102, Rotherham 97, Exeter 94, Northampton 93, Burton/Cheltenham/Fleetwood 92, Southend/Bradford 89. Of note though, when looking at fixtures the above teams have remaining to play against each other it shows the following; Gills 5, Port Vale 6, Burton 5, Exeter 8, Cheltenham 8, Northampton 4, Southend 4, Fleetwood 5, Rotherham 6, Bradford 7. So looking at that, you would have to fear for Exeter and Cheltenham, but this shows that lot's of points of the maximum available will be lost. If Gills lost all 5 games against their top 10 rivals, our maximum possible points drops to 89, which should still be enough for a top 3 spot IMO.
It's funny how brb's points prediciton has stood the test of time pretty well since the start of the season. Because it seems this league is so unpredictable in it's results each week, I'd hate to guess how many we will get. I mean since Xmas we have managed to beat the likes of Southend , Northampton & Bradford, whilst getting turned over by Wycombe & Barnet! York have been hammered by Wycombe, Morecambe & Barnet, yet twice draw with us. Port Vale going well then lose at home to Morecambe. Rovrum going well then lose 3 straight to Aldershot, Brizzle & Barnet. Now they are winning again. You wouldn't actually predict many of the above results. I can't see much point in doing the predictor thingy's cos I doubt I'd get any (let alone many) of them right. Hats off to your predictions brb. I hope the points total of 83 ends about right.
It all depends on what form we will be on at the end of the season, if we have form like our last 9 or so games then we will be fine. We have won 5, drew 2 and lost 2. So that is decent. I think that now we have won at home again we will do better at home for the rest of the season and wins at home will be more frequent, well I am hoping so. I am thinking winning half of our games will send us up and at that rate in the last 9 games we have done more than that and also drew 2 so that is a good amount of points but I believe that we need Rotherham to have a bad end of the season because I think they will be the other team who will go up so a win against them on the 1st April is important to make Evans look a fool.
